


Accompanied by Action

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Ender's Game - All Media Types, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 03:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock supposes he should be happy that Mycroft was good enough for them. What a shame it would be, if his parents had been asked to have a third. <i>Ender's Game</i> AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Accompanied by Action

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally inspired by [this](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/7277.html?thread=34617453#t34617453%20) kink meme prompt, and I’ve been working on it on and off for, um, over two years. I decided that it had to get finished before season 3, and, well, I’m only a little bit late! Part of the idea for the plot was inspired by xkcd's [Locke and Demosthenes comic](http://xkcd.com/635/). Man, if only the internet worked like people thought it would in 1985.

_All speech is vain and empty unless accompanied by action._ \-- Demosthenes

  


Sometimes, Sherlock thinks his parents regret he was ever born at all. He had been so promising in the beginning, they said. But later, once he'd learned to really analyze what went on around him—well. No interviewer whose wife's affair he exposed was going to recommend he be passed on to Battle School, no matter what his monitor said.

Mycroft was better. Not _better_ , they assured him, just better _suited_ to the demands and goals of Battle School. Sherlock knew what they really meant, of course.

He supposes he should be happy that Mycroft was good enough for them. What a shame it would be, if his parents had been asked to have a third. Mummy would never have been able to bear the shame.

-

When Mycroft is six and Sherlock thirteen, Mycroft leaves for Battle School. Sherlock locks himself in his room and refuses to say goodbye. Whenever his parents bring up Mycroft, wonder aloud how he's doing or discuss the letters they send and the replies they never get, Sherlock ignores them. Or he appears to, at least. 

He sends his own letter, once. He doesn't expect a reply, and he doesn't get one. He knows Mycroft probably never even received it, although he never bothers to mention this to his parents. He knows it's petty, but if they can't even figure out for themselves that of _course_ Battle School wouldn't want any letters from home to muck up training, of _course_ they wouldn't want the students to get bogged down with extra sentiment, then they don't deserve to know. It's obvious.

Sherlock would have been fantastic at ruling out sentiment. Better at it than Mycroft, surely. And that's what they're looking for, isn't it? The perfect commander. Surely the perfect commander wouldn't need _sentiment_.

Sherlock never writes another letter. He starts playing the violin instead, feeling quite satisfied in the knowledge that Mycroft never will.

\- 

When Sherlock is fourteen, he meets John. 

John is dull. Despite his clear inclination towards organized, military-style thinking, he never had a monitor as a child, or at least not for very long, judging by the lack of scarring on the back of his neck. He might very well be a soldier, one day. But he was never cut out for Battle School, not even close. 

He is dull. Not interesting in the slightest. There is absolutely nothing to make him stand out, save for the fact that after Sherlock tells Mr. Anderson off for the errors in his lesson over the progress of forays into altering human genetics, and brings up his obvious probationary status among the faculty, John is the only one in the room who does not give Sherlock a shifty look and call him something unoriginal and snide. Instead, John passes him on the way to his next class, and says, "Brilliant."

"Sorry?" Sherlock asks.

"What you said to Mr. Anderson? Absolutely fantastic. He's got his head up his arse."

This is true, and so Sherlock nods. John gives him a friendly wave, and leaves to go to his next class. Biology, going by the homework he pulls up on his desk to check over as he walks.

The next day, John sits beside him in Mr. Anderson's class, giving Sherlock someone to mutter his scathing remarks to, instead of just repeating them inside his own head. John smiles at them, and laughs sometimes, and once they get to giggling so badly that Mr. Anderson sends them to the hall, and they spend the rest of the period unable to stop. 

Sherlock starts bringing John by after school sometimes. Mummy is thrilled that Sherlock is doing something other than hunching over his desk all day. 

Sherlock has never had a real friend before, has never thought he needed one, and he's surprised by how much he likes it. John laughs at his jokes and makes Sherlock laugh in return, is startlingly clever on some occasions, and he appreciates it when Sherlock is clever, tells him how amazing he is, how brilliant.

It's not that Sherlock hadn't always known how brilliant he is. He knows he's smarter than a good majority of the people on Earth, and he knows that the reason he's not up in Battle School right now has nothing to do with his intellect. He didn't know how to act towards the recruiters, or to his fellow peers, and Mycroft did. That's simply all there is to it. Sherlock understands perfectly well what it takes to be a good leader, but if people are so annoying all the time, what's the _point_?

Sherlock knows that he is very, very clever. But still. It's nice to hear someone else say it, once in a while.

-

When Sherlock is fifteen, he realizes, quite abruptly, the John actually _is_ planning on going to war once he's finished with school. It's a combination of how he holds his pen and the precise way in which he bites his lips when the Bugger vids come on in school that tips Sherlock off.

What follows is a few terrible minutes of something which Sherlock eventually identifies as abject terror.

He has always known, in the abstract, about the war. Everyone knows about the war. It's what Battle School is for, to fight the Formics, to save Earth. And Sherlock is all for that. Earth, so far, has been completely satisfactory in its service. Sherlock would prefer for it to stay where it is.

As a child, he had dreamt of going to Battle School, fighting battles, maybe even being the one to win the war for good. After being rejected, he had given it up. Let Mycroft go and win the war, if it was so bloody important to him. 

But if the war doesn’t end, then John will go and fight. And if John goes to fight, if John learns how to pilot a ship and goes into space, it is quite possible that John will die. Even if he doesn't, how long would he be gone? Would he be able to receive correspondence from Sherlock, or would he be cut off, like Mycroft?

And even if the war does end, what would that mean for the rest of the world? Human beings are notorious for their obsession with conflict and their desire to cause mayhem everywhere they go. Normally, Sherlock would respect that. Criminals are so _interesting_. But once this big war is done, more are sure to spring up on Earth, and John would go and fight in one of those just as easily.

If things continue on as they are, John is going to leave.

That is unacceptable. 

Sherlock decides to come up with a plan. He thinks for a few days, and then he does some research, and then he goes to John.

"You want us to what?" John asks, incredulous.

"Write essays, John. Political essays. The Triumvirate, while it has the appearance of unity, is hopelessly fractured. If the Formics are defeated, humanity will go back to fighting wars amongst itself, as they always have."

"You're an optimistic one, aren't you?"

"You're not listening to me. I want to stop it. I want us to stop it, together."

John looks at him, both eyebrows raised. "And you really think that will work?"

Sherlock assures him that it will. While he's not sure that John totally believes him—he's getting better at interpreting expressions, making a special study of John's, but he's still not perfect—he still goes along with it anyway.

John starts a blog, under the name Demosthenes. Sherlock chooses the name. In retaliation, John makes Sherlock use the name Locke for his. Sherlock sulks for an hour, and campaigns for a change, but John holds that Sherlock isn't allowed to go back on his previous arguments ("It will be harder to trace if we don't pick names with any significance to us, but random names could seem unprofessional. Yes, of course I know what I'm talking about!"). Sherlock tries to point out that Locke, being an obvious (and base, and annoying, and not at all as hilarious as John seems to think it is) pun on his name does in fact have significance to him. John argues that it's perfect, since Sherlock would never choose something like that for himself. Sherlock continues to argue the point, but it's hopeless, because not only does it actually make sense, but John can also be hopelessly stubborn when he wants to be.

They spend hours together, researching and carefully crafting essays, tailored just so to both grab attention and make clear arguments, start nudging the world in the right direction. They begin posting.

Nothing happens. No one notices a thing, because they're just another two people on the Net blathering on about politics. Even though they're brilliant, or at least Sherlock is, no one notices.

John does not tell Sherlock that he told him so, which only makes Sherlock want to hit him. He thinks John knows this, the bastard.

He also doesn't mind so much that his plan is failing miserably, because at least it gives him a reason to spend hours in John's company, showing off. It also gives him a reason to spend time in John's company, period.

Of course, if it fails, John will leave. That remains, in Sherlock's mind, an impossible and unacceptable outcome. 

Instead of spending time examining what exactly any of that implies, Sherlock tries to come up with a new plan. 

After much deliberation, his new plan is this: he will do something so extraordinary that people will have no choice but to listen to him.

"Has anyone ever told you that you have an ego the size of a planet?" John asks, when Sherlock tells him.

"Thank you for your vote of confidence," Sherlock says. John never likes any of his ideas. Sherlock refuses to acknowledge the fact that he is sulking. John has no such qualms, and tells him to stop it.

"Look, is this about your brother?"

Sherlock looks up sharply. He has never mentioned Mycroft to John, not once.

John rolls his eyes. "Whatever you seem to think, Sherlock, I'm not stupid. Did you think I wouldn't notice how cagey you are talking about your family? There are pictures of him in your house, you know. But only as a child, a small child. Younger than six, I'd wager. 

"He could have died, but it seems unlikely, what with how you ignore them completely, and how your parents smile at them when they pass. If he'd died, you wouldn't ignore them, and they'd make your parents sad to look at. So, he's alive, but there are no pictures of him above the age of six. Since he's your brother, it's not much of an assumption to say that he's smart. Smart enough to get into Battle School, which would explain perfectly why he left when he was six. And because you're obviously not at Battle School, it would explain why you ignore them. Knowing you, you probably wouldn't take it well, your younger brother making it into Battle School when you didn't, even though I'm sure you'd hate it there. So is that what this whole changing the world thing is about?"

Sherlock stares at John, and wonders how it's possible that he can be both this impressed and this livid at the same time.

John scratches the back of his head self-consciously. "Sorry, I got something wrong, didn't I? Please tell me he's not actually dead. God, he is isn't he, I'm sorry--" 

Sherlock shakes his head. "No, no, you're right, he's in Battle School. That was…quite an impressive deduction, actually. I must be having a good influence on you."

"You are such a pompous git sometimes."

"You've mentioned, no need to go about harping on it."

"So you have a younger brother in Battle School, and you're trying to one-up him by stopping a war. With the Net."

"This isn't about Mycroft."

"Then what is it about? Why are you suddenly so concerned with the welfare of the world?"

"I'm not concerned about the _world_ , John, I'm concerned about you!" Sherlock hisses, fed up. Why do people have to be so dense? Of course it's about John. It's always about John, these days.

John looks taken aback at Sherlock's sudden outburst. "Me?" he asks.

"Yes, you, that's what I just said, do try to keep up. You're planning on going to war after you've finished with school, there are plenty of clues, obvious, and that is not an acceptable outcome."

"Really," says John, flatly. "And why is that?"

"Because you're going to _leave_ ," Sherlock spits at him. "You're going to leave, and I won't be able to go with you, and I can't--that isn't acceptable. It just isn't."

John blinks at him, face softening. "Sherlock," he starts, and then seems to lose track of his words. Sherlock silently wraps his arms around himself, and feels very exposed.

"Sherlock," John begins again, after a moment. "Let me get this straight. You're telling me that you've spent months coming up with plans to try to create world peace, just so that I won't leave to go to war?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you. Would you like me to go over it again, slower and with smaller words?"

John ignores the barb in favor of smiling at him. It’s an odd smile, a bit sad around the edges. "That's sweet," he says. "In fact, I think it's one of the nicest things you've ever said to me. Which is odd, but well, there you go."

Sherlock doesn't know what to say, his throat feeling strangely rough, and so instead he goes back to the original subject and tries to ignore the tingling sensation in his gut. "Right, well, my plan, yes. The problem is that as anonymous voices on the Net, there's no reason for anyone to listen to us, or think that we're worth listening to." 

"And so you think we’ve got to become famous." 

"Not famous, necessarily. Just…”

“Amazing, astounding, all the other adjectives you like to apply to yourself. You realize that’s what being famous means? Being amazing at something? Or at least making people think you are.” John grins. "If we do something flashy and impressive enough, we might catch some attention. Still have to keep it anonymous, though, which'll be the tricky part."

"Leave that to me," Sherlock says. "The question does remain, then, how shall we go about impressing the public?"

"You're the genius, Sherlock. You figure it out." John pauses for a moment. "And listen. This sounds like fun, and besides that, it could actually do something to help. You can be an arse sometimes—well, most of the time—but you have good ideas, and if we could make people actually listen to you, you could make a difference. But just because I'm helping you doesn't mean I'm not ever going to leave, Sherlock. If there's still a war on in a few years, when I graduate, I'm going to go."

Sherlock grits his teeth. "What is so important about running off to fight that--"

"Who said anything about fighting? I think I'd like to be a doctor."

-

When Sherlock is sixteen, he and John begin putting their revised plan into action. Though calling it a plan is, perhaps, a bit of a stretch. It’s more of an accident than anything else. 

It happens like this: Sherlock gets into an argument over the Net, in the comments section of a news article about a missing girl. It escalates, and in the end, Sherlock ends up having solved a kidnapping. 

“Brilliant,” says John. 

“Honestly, it’s just pathetic that the police can’t do this sort of thing without a teenager’s help,” Sherlock points out. 

John elbows him in the side, and then pauses, mouth open in the middle of what Sherlock assumes would have been some sort of snide comment. “What?” Sherlock asks. “Do try not to overwork yourself thinking about whatever it is.”

John doesn’t even bother to glare at him anymore. “I was just thinking,” he says, slowly. “About that whole idea you had of becoming famous. Anonymously. So that people might listen to us.”

Sherlock blinks.

John settles back smugly, grabbing Sherlock’s desk out of his hands and typing into it rapidly, pulling up the screens necessary to set up a new identity on the Net. “You don’t have to say I’m right,” he says. “I know how difficult that would be for you. Now, what shall your new crime-solving persona be called?”

They settle, after some debate, on The Consulting Detective. Simple, obvious, good for name recognition. 

It all goes rather quickly after that—it turns out that Sherlock is rather brilliant at solving the many cases the police are too inept to handle themselves. It also turns out that people enjoy reading about that sort of thing on the Net. The website that John sets up soars in popularity. It gets so popular, in fact, that more and more people actually bother to read the political essays that are also posted alongside John’s write-ups of the mysteries Sherlock has solved. 

“Morons,” Sherlock sighs. “These essays are no different than the ones we posted a year ago. Now people suddenly listen to us? Because the essays are attached to a famous name?”

John rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Like being anonymously famous is such a hardship for you,” he says. “It’s just how the Net works. You’ve got to get name recognition before you can get anyone to listen to you.”

And people do begin to listen to them. Important people. People with influence. 

Maybe, Sherlock thinks, looking at John, bent over his desk, it will be enough. Enough to really change the world. 

Maybe, in the end, it will be enough to keep John from leaving.

-

When Sherlock is seventeen, the IF calls. More specifically, a man called Lestrade, the same man who recruited Mycroft. Apparently, Mycroft wasn't as perfect a soldier as they'd thought he'd be. He's refused to continue with his training, in the aftermath of some incident that Lestrade won't elaborate on. 

"And what do you want me to do about it?" Sherlock asks, barely even trying not to sound smug.

"We need you to talk to him."

"You think a phone conversation with me is going to solve Mycroft's apparent mental breakdown?"

"It's not a breakdown--" Lestrade starts, before apparently thinking the better of it. "Look, we've flown him back down to Earth. It wouldn't be a phone conversation, you'd be meeting him in person."

Sherlock is silent. The idea of Mycroft on Earth, instead of unreachable out in space, is an odd one. He's not quite sure what to do with it.

"I should also probably mention that the IF's actually got some pretty good tracking software. We know the identities of Locke and Demosthenes, or _The Consulting Detective_ , if that’s what you’re going with these days, and while we're prepared to keep that information confidential, your cooperation in this matter might go a long way towards making sure that happens."

Sherlock swears. He agrees to go and meet Mycroft.

“I don’t know why they insisted on me talking to you,” Mycroft says, leaning against a tree and staring out at the lake where they’ve seen fit to keep him during his stay planet-side. Obviously, it’s to make sure no one gets knows that he’s here. Sherlock wonders if Mycroft’s current whereabouts are even common knowledge within the IF. 

Mycroft cuts his eyes over at him. He’s different. Of course he’s different, it’s been four years. Sherlock hasn’t seen or spoken to him since he was a child. Since they were both children, really—it’s been a long four years. For both of then, Sherlock supposes, eying Mycroft right back. 

“Nor I,” Sherlock responds, “and yet here we are. The Holmes brothers, back together again.”

Mycroft barks out a laugh at that. “So dramatic,” he says. “You always were so over the top about everything.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I was thirteen years old,” he says. “And you were a show-off.”

“You, on the other hand, hated them all and didn’t bother to hide it. Funny, how they still ended up needing you in the end, isn’t it?”

Sherlock purses his lip, and walks over to the edge of the water. “Don’t try to flatter me, it isn’t going to work,” he says.

He can hear Mycroft sigh behind him. “No?” he asks. “I wasn’t trying to flatter you. Allow me to prove it—tell me, Sherlock, are you still under the delusion that they were _wrong_ , not to take you?”

“You still don’t think I’m good enough? Is that it?” Sherlock closes his eyes, clenches his fists. He’d almost forgotten how _angry_ Mycroft is capable of making him.

“Sherlock, pure intelligence isn’t a proper substitute for leadership ability. Surely you’ve figured that out by now. You’d need to be able to get people to follow you. They didn’t leave you here because they thought you were stupid, Sherlock—they left you because they thought you couldn’t lead, and they were right.”

“I’ve got a follower,” Sherlock mutters.

“‘Follower’. Singular. Not exactly an army, is it?”

“Shut up, Mycroft,” he says, words familiar on his tongue. “So why have they brought me here? So that you can insult me?”

“They brought you here to convince me to go and fight their war for them, I suppose.”

“What, have you tired of being their little pet?”

Mycroft walks to stand beside him. “Yes,” is all he says. “Funny that you’re so jealous of me, of being their pet. Anyone decent wouldn’t envy me.” 

Sherlock looks at him again. For a boy of ten, he looks tired. 

“Well, get over it,” he says.

“Excuse me?” Mycroft asks.

Sherlock doesn’t look at him. “I said, get over it. The world is on your shoulders, Mycroft, or so Colonel Lestrade tells me. I don’t care what sort of moral or personal turmoil you’re going through. I don’t care if it’s _hard_ , I don’t care if it breaks you, I don’t even particularly care if it’s already broken you. If they IF needs you to do this, then do it.”

Mycroft sits down. “I don’t know why I thought the years might have made you more compassionate,” he mutters.

“Neither do I. Whatever petty concerns you may have, this world is more important than them.”

“Oh, you care about the rest of the world now?”

“Yes,” Sherlock says, not thinking about the rest of the world at all, “I do.”

For a moment, there is only silence. Mycroft draws a hand slowly through the water, and stands back up. “So you have changed,” he says.

Sherlock scoffs, and does not answer. 

Mycroft watches him, as Sherlock watches the water. “I was hoping things could be different, between us.”

Sherlock shrugs. “Does it really matter?”

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says sharply. “I very well might never see you again.”

Sherlock turns, and see Mycroft visibly get himself back under control. “So you’ll go?” he asks.

“Only because you asked so nicely,” Mycroft spits. “I’ll go. I don’t have to like it. I suppose what I feel doesn’t matter very much at all, even to my own brother.”

“And you don’t believe you will survive the war?” Sherlock asks. “You’re a commander. Surely you don’t have to worry.”

“I don’t believe it matters, Sherlock. You know that. If I go, then I’m gone from Earth forever.”

He’s right. Sherlock hates it that he’s right, that he’s obviously figured out what Sherlock has too—the world will be a mess, in the wake of the war. A returning war hero, liable to fall into the hands of any particular country, would only make it messier.

“Right,” says Sherlock. And then, because he has just convinced his little brother to give up any hope of a normal life, possibly any hope of staying sane, he decides that perhaps, for once, he can afford to be typical. He can afford to be the older brother Mycroft could never have had, probably even without Battle School tearing them apart. 

He puts his hand on Mycroft’s back, and he shoves him, hard, into the lake. He saw Harry do it to John, once, and it seems the sort of thing siblings are supposed to do.

When Mycroft comes up for air, spluttering, Sherlock laughs. He keeps laughing, even as Mycroft grabs his ankle and tugs, dragging him down into the water.

The next day, Lestrade calls him and thanks him. Sherlock hangs up without saying a word.

“Well,” John asks, after Sherlock has spent the day at school utterly silent, “how did it go? The meeting with your brother the IF was so keen to set up?” 

Sherlock taps his fingers along the top of his desk, creating a random pattern of dots. Well. Seemingly random, as true randomness is impossible to achieve without the elimination of humans from the equation, and—

“Sherlock,” John says, grabbing his hand. He doesn’t let go until Sherlock looks up to meet his eyes. “Alright?” he asks.

Sherlock drops his gaze. “Fine,” he says, dismissively. “It’s all sorted out now anyway. We’ve work to do, John—the war will be ending soon.”

John, lovely and brilliant John, does not ask Sherlock how he can be so sure. Instead he says, “Right,” and pulls up his desk to sit beside Sherlock.

-

When Sherlock is eighteen and Mycroft eleven, they win the war.

They hear the news over the intercom, just outside their school, amid the laughter of students enjoying a sunny day. Once everyone shuts up enough to hear, the laughter soon turns into shouts of joy. The Formics have been defeated. The war is over.

And new ones are about to begin, Sherlock knows, although of course the announcement says nothing about that, of course none of their idiot peers are bright enough to realize it. Wars will begin, but Sherlock can help stop them. And John can help too, now that he's been given something else to occupy his attention, something just as dangerous as fighting. Just as dangerous, but also much closer to Sherlock.

Sherlock turns to John and grins, says, "We're going to have so much more work to do now, John, do you realize? It's going to be brilliant, absolutely brilliant!"

"You're not excited because the war is over," John says, clarifying.

"Don't be dense, John. The real war is just beginning." The end of a war is boring, but the start of one? Endlessly exciting. 

"If I were you, I'd be more happy for your brother," John says. "It was him, wasn't it? He's the one who defeated them all."

A good deduction. Sherlock waves a hand. "Oh, Mycroft, it's always Mycroft," he says, and then stops short for a moment, because he's never been able to talk about Mycroft that way, that flippantly. He's always felt too angry, too betrayed, too guilty.

Fascinating. Mycroft has just done something Sherlock could never do, despite how much he longed to do it, and yet for the first time since he was thirteen years old, Sherlock doesn't feel like he isn't good enough.

“Will I get to meet him, do you think?” John asks, waggling his eyebrows. Teasing Sherlock, because of course Mycroft Holmes is going to be famous. 

Sherlock doesn’t care. He isn’t even the slightest bit annoyed at the idea of his brother being famous, the sort of person strangers on the street might ask him about. He simply doesn’t care. It’s amazing.

“He’s not coming home,” Sherlock says. “It’s up to us to handle Earth now.” 

John, brilliantly, smiles. “We’d better get started then, hadn’t we?” 

Sherlock tugs him in by the arm and kisses him soundly. This is probably a typical human reaction to the end of a war, and also to the start of one, Sherlock thinks. He can't bring himself to care.

"Not that I mind," John says, after a few moments, which may or may not have turned into minutes, "but what was that for?"

Sherlock looks out on the horizon, one hand still cradling John's cheek. It looks perfectly bright, and he can hear the cheers of celebrating students, thinking this is the end of all their problems. But it isn't, it isn't at all. There's going to be so much fighting, and Sherlock is going to be in the middle of it, John by his side. 

And the best thing of all is, he's not standing in anyone's shadow anymore.

So he says, "Don't be ridiculous. You've given my something better than what Mycroft has. Do you have any idea how fantastic that is?"

John rolls his eyes and calls him an idiot, but he grabs Sherlock's hand of his own accord, and he follows Sherlock all the way home.

**Author's Note:**

> I was so desperate to get this thing finished that a bunch of stray plot ideas I really liked never made it in--Moriarty was supposed to be in it as some sort of Achilles-type figure, for one thing. But hey, it's done, and now I can start working on all the John/Mary/Sherlock fic that The Empty Hearse has made me want to write.


End file.
